Protesters may shout and relatives of the hostages plead, but Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi really has only one viable option: to keep his nation's troops in Iraq. Any other decision, some political analysts say, would be tantamount to defeat.
Faced with his biggest test to date, Koizumi has vowed not to pull out the troops despite threats by a militant group to kill three captive Japanese civilians unless he brings home the soldiers, sent to southern Iraq to help with reconstruction work.
ILLUSTRATION: YU SHA
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney applauded that commitment Tuesday and warned that reneging on it would endanger the unity of the U.S.-led coalition.
Koizumi's handling of the crisis will almost certainly affect the outcome of parliamentary elections in July as well as the debate over what role Japan -- long constrained by its pacifist constitution -- should play in global security affairs.
"Public opinion in Japan on foreign policy is sort of a blank, because there hasn't been much experience," said Steven Reed, a political science professor at Chuo University in Tokyo. "Whatever happens now could have a huge effect on public opinion."
Bringing back the troops, however, would mean acknowledging their deployment was ill-conceived, a financial analyst said.
"I don't think he can say `I'm sorry, I made a mistake'," said Shigenori Okazaki, a political analyst at brokerage UBS. "That would be a negation of all the important decisions he has made since day one. If he did, he would have to take responsibility for that decision, and he would have to go."
The Japanese public was deeply divided from the start over the dispatch of about 550 ground troops to Iraq, the nation's riskiest military mission since World War II and a milestone in Tokyo's shift from a purely defensive postwar military stance.
A survey aired Monday by Asahi TV showed that a scant majority of voters -- 53 percent -- felt the troops should not be brought home in response to the kidnappers' demands.
But support for the dispatch itself fell eight points to 39 percent, while opposition rose five points to 48 percent.
"Support for a withdrawal is going up. But I don't think Koizumi will change his mind," said Takashi Inoguchi, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo. "He will take the risk and face the Upper House elections."
KOIZUMI'S COMPETENCE
Support for Koizumi's Cabinet was at 48.7 percent, high for a Japanese prime minister after three years in office but down 4.5 points from a previous survey, Asahi TV said.
Koizumi has refused requests to meet with the hostages' relatives to listen to their pleas to bring the troops home, a stance that has made him appear callous to some Japanese. The premier's competence in a crisis is also under scrutiny, along with that of his government.
Some of Koizumi's harshest critics, including the main opposition Democratic Party, agree that the troops should not be brought home in response to the militants' demands.
But they argue that a deteriorating security situation in southern Iraq near Samawa means the dispatch is violating a law that restricts the troops' activities to a "non-combat zone."
U.S.-led forces, which have been struggling for months to crush a Sunni insurgency in central Iraq, now face a Shi'ite revolt in the south.
Debate over Japan's troop deployment is thus likely to continue, no matter how the hostage drama ends.
"Iraq is on the verge of a rerun of the quagmire of Vietnam or Lebanon, which was racked by terrorism and chaos during a civil war," said the liberal Asahi newspaper, which has consistently opposed the dispatch.
Developments in Iraq also have implications for Japan's alliance with the US, whose vice president, Dick Cheney, had promised that America would do its best to help resolve the hostage crisis.
However, Japan's media and many citizens expressed doubts.
"If U.S.-Japan cooperation does not function satisfactorily in this crisis, it could affect trust in the overall security relation," said the daily Tokyo Shimbun.
Many Japanese on both left and right resent what they see as Tokyo having to follow U.S. policy dictates because the U.S. military provides a security umbrella for Japan.
"Neo-nationalists seem more solid day by day," Inoguchi said. "The inability of the United States to do much in Iraq ... could encourage (neo-nationalists) to try to enhance Japan's military and revise the constitution so Japan can act more freely."
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